CFP: Sites of Asian American Studies (7/15/06; 11/3/06-11/4/06)

Sites of Asian American Studies: 11/3-11/4, The Ohio State University,Columbus, Ohio

In 2001, the East of California Conference was hosted by Oberlin College. Fiveyears later, the EOC conference returns to the state of Ohio, to be hosted byThe Ohio State University. In the years since EOC first came to Ohio, thenature and tenor of Asian American Studies has altered dramatically. Beyond thesimple east coast-west coast split that has characterized Asian AmericanStudies, regions in between—the Midwest, South, Southwest, the Great Plains andthe Mountain states—have emerged as vital places from which to document andengage key political and social issues facing Asian Americans within andoutside of the Academy. Mindful of these critiques, this year's conferenceorganizers seek to reconsider the contours and practices of Asian Americancommunities and scholarship east of California.

With a view to enriching and broadening the ways Asian Americanistsconceptualize our subjects and objects of inquiry, we are proposing to organizepanels focused around key terms and concepts that have shaped Asian AmericanStudies. The reasons for this approach are multi-fold. First, we wish toexplore how the location of Asian American Studies in America's heartland—awayfrom the two coasts—compels us to redefine the field. How does studying theMidwest and the South and establishing programs and departments thereinnecessarily challenge the field's key assumptions and existing paradigms?Moreover, how might we reflect on the location of Asian American Studies inrelation to other interdisciplinary programs such as American Studies, AsianStudies, Queer Studies, and Women's Studies, particularly in terms ofimplementing programs and departments? How might collaborations with themethodological and theoretical possibilities afforded by other departments andprograms sensitive to the exigencies of race, class, culture, gender andsexuality productively reshape the objects and subjects of our critical work? With these questions in mind, we invite 200-word abstracts that describe howthe key organizing concepts listed below shapes the nature of your researchand/or activism. Please note that we may not use all the rubrics, so feel freeto signal how your work might offer intersectional analyses of one or morecategory.1. Aesthetics2. Black-white racial binary3. California-centrism4. Cultural studies5. Labor6. Nation/ empire7. Neoliberalism8. Queer studies9. Surveillance10. Transnationalism and Diaspora

We are soliciting individual papers to draw out the theoretical andmethodological complexities of engaging these key terms. Please indicate whichkey term your paper engages. We envision panels of 3 presenters, in whichpanelists will have the option of pre circulating papers so as to allow thepanel time to be devoted to a critical interrogation of the key concept.We also invite you to submit a panel (consisting of three papers). We will,however, be inviting our colleagues from OSU and Denison University to serve aschairs and respondents. In so doing, we hope to facilitate a regionally-diverseand rich approach sensitive to the changing needs of Asian American Studies inplaces without established histories of AAS.

The 2006 EOC conference will run from Friday November 3- Saturday November 4,2006. Our tentative keynote speaker will be anthropologist, Martin F.Manalansan, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois,Urbana-Champaign. Manalansan is the author of several pioneering works on gayAsian American masculinities, and most recently, the author of Global Divas:Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora, Duke University Press, 2004.Please send abstracts of 200 words or less by July 15, 2006 to the conferenceorganizers(eoc_conf_2006_at_yahoo.com) Please include a 1 page CV with yoursubmission.